comp.lang.c FAQ list
·
Question 11.27

Q:
Why does the ANSI Standard
place limits on
the length
and case-significance
of
external identifiers?

A:
The problem is
linkers
which are
under control of
neither
the ANSI/ISO Standard nor
the C compiler developers on the systems which have them.
The limitation is only that identifiers be
significant
in some initial sequence of characters,
not that they be restricted to
that many characters
in total
length.
(The limitation was to six characters
in the original ANSI Standard,
but has been relaxed to
31
in C99.)